


As Winter Melts

by goldexemption, sunflower123ink



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Locked In, M/M, Modern Setting, Nightmares, Sexual Tension, Winter Cabins, betrayal of secrets, lots of tension, some irony, tomarry - Freeform, will add more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29650857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldexemption/pseuds/goldexemption, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower123ink/pseuds/sunflower123ink
Summary: In any world, Harry Potter and Tom Riddle—the Boy Who Lived and Lord Voldemort—are fate entwined. Twisted around each other; separation was never a possibility, not in any reality. Not when they’ve bound themselves together so tightly—soirrevocably—that to be apart is to be not-whole. To bebroken.So it’s no wonder they can’t stand to be apart for an entire year, not even when Tom is not the same Voldemort, not even when Harry is not the same Savior. Sometimes, however, even if they dance to the same tune, their personalities can clash, and they need a little push. It’s just lucky they’ve got such good friends.Draco sighed again. “As long as my cabin isn’t ruined, destroyed, or vandalized when I get it back, it’s fine.”And with that, Granger shared a look with Weasley before leaning forward, her eyes bright with mystery. "So, here's what we're going to do…”In which Harry and Tom get locked in the Malfoy cabin together. It’s winter, though the air between them is anything but cold.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 56
Kudos: 77





	1. don't—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tom,” Harry says, as neutrally as he can. “Fancy seeing you here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! We've written the next four chapters, and they will be posted over the next few days; the chapter count might change, however. Anyways, thanks for clicking on this work, and we hope you enjoy :) (leave a kudos or comment if you want <3)

Harry waves goodbye to the Weasleys, grateful that they had agreed to drop him off near his job, even if he has to walk a bit. The Weasleys are good like that, they always have been. Inviting him over for lunches, driving him closer to his work, baking him snacks… 

Being the family he’s always wished he had. (The Dursleys, of course, don't count.) 

Lunch with them can never be called uneventful, not with seven kids at the table. (Bill and Charlie had come home for winter break, so the house was crowded full. More than usual, anyway.) This particular lunch however, had been...well, _horrible._

They discussed a few things that Harry had hoped would never be discussed again.

The Weasleys are nice, attentive, and always happy to shower him in as much attention as possible. (Attention he doesn’t think is necessary, to be honest, but is nice either way.) 

Harry, unfortunately, isn’t used to people actually caring enough to be updated on his every life move, and while it gives him a strange certain warm feeling in his chest, he can take care of himself. He’s been doing it for as long as he can remember, after all. 

Speaking of... He can fend off Ron and Hermione when it was just the three of them at school, but at the Burrow? There’s no escaping when both Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, and the rest of the red heads are on both of his friends' sides.

And which—or to be more accurate, _whose_ —side was it, you might ask? 

_Tom Riddle._

Lunch had started out fine. Mrs. Weasley had said he was too thin—he was perfectly fine, thank you Mrs. Weasley—piled food on his plate, Fred and George nearly caught him with a prank, but Ron was the unlucky one instead; Mrs. Weasley piled seconds on his plate, Bill and Charlie asked about school; Mrs. Weasley piled thirds on his plate, and he’d spoken to Arthur about thero-dynamics, which he was apparently looking into.

And then—and _then_ —came the conversation he was positively _dreading._ He had evaded it at school with Ron and Hermione, managed to slip out of it, with strained smiles and sweaty palms, words he just couldn’t manage to say caught in his throat. 

A million times he had made do, had evaded their honestly stupid questions. Who cared about _him_ anyway? Certainly not Harry himself, and his friends shouldn’t either. 

It hadn’t been _their_ friendship that shattered that day. 

So it shouldn’t be theirs to comment on, and yet… Biting into another one of Mrs. Weasley’s—delicious, by the way—sandwiches, Hermione said his name. Eyebrows rising at her tone, he made eye contact with her. (That was his first mistake.)

Her brown eyes were shining with the look he had seen when she was about to be successful. Normally when she’d come up with a way to be right, a plan someone else couldn’t counteract.

(Harry had been on the other end of this look multiple times. Mostly when he and Ron got in trouble and tried to get out of it, but that was a story for another time.)

When Harry’s eyes shifted to the left and onto Ron, he watched Ron lean over earnestly as well. _Traitor_ , Harry thought glumly. Yep, there was no wiggling out of this. 

And though neither of his friends had spoken yet, he knew exactly what conversation this would be. He eyed the multiple Weasleys around him and knew that his tactics to escape _just_ Hermione and Ron wouldn’t work with this entire family. 

(Honestly, he thought that if he tried, Fred and George might just bear hug him to the ground and force him to endure yet another one of their pranks, so he’d _have_ to talk.)

 _So_. They were really doing this. He sighed, and when he glanced at Hermione once more, she knew he took his sigh for what it was—an acknowledgement that he wouldn’t fight. At least not too much. He hoped she realized, too, that this was a _tactical_ surrender, not a defeat—even so, her eyes narrowed in satisfaction. 

It was nice that he and his friends knew each other this well, to communicate with glances and sighs, except Harry wished more than ever that they didn’t, because then he could act like he wasn’t aware of anything, scurry off to Ron’s room and hide there for the rest of lunch. 

He watched everyone, feeling vaguely tired already, as Hermione settled in her seat. The room was quieter than before, Harry thought. Or perhaps that was him, trying to muffle whatever she’d be saying next. _Oh, well. Too late._

“Harry, I know you don’t want us bringing this up…” she started, and Ron shifted in his seat. So, then. Ron knew that he was guilty, and seemed to know that Harry knew it too. The next time Ron asked to copy an essay, the answer would be an absolute, resounding, _no_. 

“...But we really do need to talk about it.” Hermione continued. “You avoid it at school and we’ve given you space! Honestly, we've given you too much. Now it’s time for us to have a serious conversation, and if the only way to do that is to do it here, then fine!"

Harry looked around, and slid down further in his seat. The room was completely silent now, conversations stopped, and everyone was looking at them, and Harry could gage what they thought well enough. It summed up as; not being on his side.

Harry wanted to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment, and a good amount of dread too.

“We’re just worried about you, Harry,” Ron started. 

“I _know_ ,” Harry said sharply, “but you don’t have to be. I’m _fine_.” He understood. He _knew._ He would be worried about Ron or Hermione if this had happened, and they refused to talk, but that was different. They were _Ron_ and _Hermione_. 

(Harry ignored the little voice inside him—the sensible part, he sometimes thought—that said: _No, it really isn’t that different_.)

That was just the way they were, caring, and all together too irritating for that exact reason. He loved the Weasleys, had since he’d met them at the train station at eleven, but sometimes they could be too pressing, too...overwhelming. Especially when he wasn’t used to it.

But this talk they wanted to have...he’d been putting it off for an entire year. (Honestly, he thinks he should get an award, a trophy or _something_ for all his troubles and skills in avoiding the topic. A college scholarship, at the very least.) 

Their friendship, _him_ , Tom—; It was still a sore subject to say the least, even after a full twelve months. (Eleven months and fifteen days. Not that Harry was counting.) 

Despite knowing that they were doing this because they actually liked him, and were genuinely worried, he could still feel annoyance rising. 

“All right. You want to talk. That’s fine, that’s great. Except I don’t need to. We can, but it isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly fine without Tom. I have you guys. _And_ it’s been a year.” He stared at them all, his mouth forming a stubborn line.

“Really, I’m _fine_ ," he added. Still, the Weasleys and Hermione stared back at him doubtfully. The way he so clearly saw their disbelief had him tossing his hands up in exasperation.

“If we were going to have a talk, we should’ve done it when it _happened_.” He stressed the word, looking around the table at his surrogate family. “Not a year after the fact, when I’ve moved on. If you still want to talk to me about feelings and proper ways to _grieve_ or check up on me or whatever, you can, okay?” He bit out sharply, and turned to Hermione, who looked back at him defiantly. 

“But don’t corner and gang up on me about it. That’s not the most comforting way to get me to open up and burst into tears like you all have been waiting for me to do.” Harry knew his voice was too harsh, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Frustration gnawed at him, sharp and sudden, and his head hurt fiercely. 

It felt like a pressure was building up behind his eyes, and he had to go work after this, and he was so tired of Tom being brought up, and he just wanted to have a nice lunch with his family, he didn’t want to talk about this—

Harry took a deep breath, and he felt the room steady a little. 

When he looked around the table, he saw remorseful looks back, except for when he looked at Hermione, whose face was pale but determined, as though she was torn between being sorry, and continuing what she started.

Harry crossed his arms. 

Hermione gave him a hard stare, which softened as she saw the way his eyes winced at the sunlight pouring through the window. “All right, Harry. We can—and we _will_ , don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been avoiding us—talk about it...but later, okay?” 

Harry sighed heavily. “Okay," he conceded, because something was better than nothing and maybe...maybe the talk was overdue, anyway. 

(And maybe—even if he’d needed this a year ago, when he was heartbroken and torn, it was too late now. He was _over_ Tom. 

Again, he ignored the small part of his brain that said no, he really wasn’t.) 

Harry sighed. Before long, everyone started to eat again, conversation rising up to a low din—but Harry’s mind was still on the conversation he’d just had. On the person— _Tom Riddle_ —who the conversation was about. Who had _betrayed_ him, a year ago—

He shouldn’t think about that. Not before work when he would need to focus. _Don’t. Don’t think about what he_ —

At the end of the lunch, when Harry has to get to work and Mrs. Weasley offers to drive him, he waves goodbye to all of the Weasley’s. Getting hugs, pats on the back, and ruffles in his hair. He still has to get used to it sometimes, all the touching, but that thought fades when Ron claps him on the shoulder as he climbs into the car, and speaks:

“Riddle, as much as I hate to admit it, seems to calm you down. You’re _happier_ around him.” 

Harry stares. They don’t often say his name, referring to him as ‘You-Know-Who’ and when the twins are feeling dramatic: ‘He who shall not be named.’ 

The twins are good like that, good at making serious things not serious. 

When Harry realizes he’s awkwardly halfway in the car, he focuses on sliding into his seat and says nothing. It’s only at the end of the car ride before he gets out that he turns back to Ron.

He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. Empty air, his words stuck in the back of his throat. Ron, just like always, gets him anyways, and pats him on his back softly. Like Harry had said, it’s nice to have friends who can tell what you meant with the littlest glances, the smallest signs. 

Ron smiles and nods and Harry is eternally grateful. Even if his smile is a bit too empathetic and sad for Harry to grin back. 

(He still isn’t letting Ron copy off him next time, though. It’s what he deserves for teaming with Hermione; see how he feels when next time Harry does the same thing.)

Harry gets out of the car, waves a small good-bye to Ron and watches as the Ford Anglia drives off. His chest hurts a little, and he feels like something he can’t get back has just disappeared, driven away in the Weasley’s car. 

He ignores the feeling, and starts to head to work. 

Harry sighs, coming out of his head and skirting past some sort of brown wetness on the concrete of the sidewalk that looks vaguely like coffee, but he’s not sure enough about it to warrant not being cautious.

It’s cold, like below freezing cold, and he wishes the Dursley’s would give him winter hand-me downs, instead of this... _thing_ he’ll hesitate to call a jacket. He almost wants to turn around and ask Ron to let him borrow his coat, but he knows the Weasley’s are long gone by now. 

Though he knows the Weasley’s would’ve let him. And that makes him smile a bit, unconsciously, just a lilt of his lips.

Before he slams into something.

Or rather, someone.

“Hello, Harry. Long time no see.” 

And Harry is on the ground, just starting to stand up, and he _knows_ that voice, knows it like the back of his hand, every inflection and tone, that accent, even if it seems to waver a bit here, now. (Unless Harry’s imagining that, and he very well might be.) And above all else, that voice knows his name.

“Tom,” Harry says, as neutrally as he can. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Except his tone isn’t that of one greeting an old friend, it’s bland. It’s devoid of emotion and dull and it’s dripping with hurt and old wounds, old wounds that have barely begun to scar over, a small bit of patch-work that their chance meeting has just torn through. 

Harry makes himself stand up, and looks up at Tom. Tom’s head is tilted. (In that way that Harry had teased Tom about. The way that makes that curl fall in front of his brow. The curl that Harry had loved to watch and brush aside—) 

His mouth is surprisingly not curled into a smirk. (A smirk that he wears almost everywhere, all the time, Harry used to joke that he was born with it.)

It’s a smirk that used to make his heart ache. His hands tremble and he wonders where the smirk that used to make his heart ache is. Where it’s gone. 

His eyes don’t even look cruel, and for some reason that is strange too. And in this small moment, Harry thinks that if he were a passer-by, and he’d seen them standing here, like this, a second frozen in time, he thinks that they’d look almost like _friends_. Like friends, or like complete strangers.

Both assumptions would be wrong, they are nowhere near strangers and Harry almost giggles at the absurdity of the other option; like Tom Riddle does friends. 

(Harry has been there, tried that; look how it's turned out.)

Tom’s eyes aren’t slanted and mean, the shape of his mouth isn’t a taunting smirk, (because the mocking ones weren’t ever as heart-aching.) The tilt of his head isn’t as condescending as it could be. As Harry has seen. His face is so completely and utterly blank, though if Harry searches he thinks he can see surprise lining his features—

Except in an instant that changes. Another beat passes and passer-byes can no longer distinguish whether they are friend or foe. They don’t look like two blank slated strangers anymore, and there is no indifference on Tom’s face; just the barest bit of recognition.

(The moment is swirling out of reach, into the frosty winter wind and into the abyss, and another second and it is _gone_. A moment where something might have happened, it is _gone_ , never going to come back.) 

( _I_ _must be crazy_ , Harry thinks, because for a second he’d actually _mourned_ the loss of that moment. The moment where Tom might have apologi—)

 _Have I learnt nothing?_ He asks himself. _Tom Riddle_ never _apologizes._

And Harry feels his own face contort as well. Can tell that his expression shifts to match Tom’s in its own way; his eyes turning sharp, and cold. (And underneath there may be hurt, but no one will find out under the green glow.) 


	2. and the moment breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Harry isn’t done. Harry isn’t done, and the conversation hasn’t even _started._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Here is chapter two, we hope you like it! (If you do, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment!) <3 :)

There seems to be another second, another pause in time. Except this one is full of tension, hard to swallow tension, practically vibrating in the air between them. Like a rubber band just before it breaks, pulled further and further until it’s taut and can no longer stand more. The tension’s what they’re breathing in, and when they exhale, it’s what they’re breathing out.

Tom begins to smile. And—

And the rubber band _snaps_.

Harry moves past Tom, trying to ignore this, ignore the situation. Push his anger, his hurt, all these emotions he _hates_ and wants to shove away so they’ll never be seen again; he pushes them down in his stomach and _ignores_ them.

Except he can’t, he’s not able to. (And if he doesn’t want to, if a little bit of him had melted when he’d seen Tom’s beginnings of a smile: well, it’s not like anyone will care.) Tom grabs Harry’s wrist, hard enough to hold him there but not hard enough that there'll be bruises later. Harry flinches anyway.

Tom sees this, maybe, because a second later he lets go of Harry’s sleeve and Harry snatches his hand back. He is about to leave, but something—whether it’s that little bit of longing inside him, the look in Tom’s eyes—he stays.

(Harry knows better, he knows better than anyone the deft manipulations that Tom easily manages, he knows them, he knows _Tom_ , better than anyone.)

“What is it Tom,” Harry says. It isn’t a question.

Tom is silent for a bit, and Harry considers walking away before Tom starts to speak. “I’m sorry, Harry. But—”

Harry feels hope rising in him, and he _despises_ it, he hates how he still longs for Tom, even after a year, even after all those times he’d promised to himself that their friendship was gone, dashed to pieces. He _hates_ the hope, and he wants to take a knife and _cut_ it out of him, he wants it gone.

He hates it because it’s entirely _useless_. Tom had apologized twice in their entire friendship, and only one of those times was related to this incident. And that apology had been true for five seconds before Tom decided his pride wasn’t worth saying sorry.

Their _friendship_ wasn’t worth one word.

“But we’ve both said some things we regret, haven't we?” Tom finishes, and Harry wants to punch him in the face.

And the hope _shatters_ , like every hope Harry has ever felt before, flame snuffed out like every other spark. (Curled up in his cupboard, cold, and hungry, he wishes for his parents to come and take him away. At break, watching the other kids play, hoping that someone will want to be his friend.) _I’m stupid_ , Harry thinks. _So, so stupid_.

Two times in their friendship Tom had ever apologized and yet Harry had wished he’d do it again. Harry doesn’t even think he would’ve accepted it. He didn’t accept it when his eyes were teary and cheeks blotchy—it wasn’t like Tom had meant that one, anyway—and he doesn’t think he would’ve accepted this one.

But it would’ve been a start and Harry hates the fact that he even wants a start.

(He remembers Tom once telling Harry that hope was a horrible thing. He remembers telling Tom to shut it.

Maybe Tom wasn’t so wrong.)

Tom is saying something, something about ignoring past grievances and wounds, but Harry isn’t done. Harry isn’t done, and the conversation hasn’t even _started._

The only times they’ve spoken are all filled with frozen stares, and hateful words. Sometimes the things they say don’t appear much more than surface level to others. (But the person speaking and the person being told, both feel it like a stab in the gut.)

So finally, Tom wants to start this conversation off without snarky remarks? Fine, be his guest.

But—

_“We both said some things we regret.”_

Absolutely _not._

All his feelings, the ones he’s been nursing away in the dark for the past year, suddenly explode out of him in an angry burst, a flooded dam just broken. _How_ could _he?_

An entire year, he’s had these feelings curled inside of him. Curled into small holes only they can fill, and slowly becoming _more_. More, more than he can _stand_ , filling him up and up and up, and every chance encounter with Tom simply swirled them into factions. Anger and hurt and sadness and _so much more._

They take away his appetite, instead taking space in his stomach. They make him dizzy, and when he takes a breath, he doesn’t get oxygen. He just gets more _hate_ to fill his stomach, more _hurt_ to fill his head, more kindling to fill the rising _flames_ in his mind _ _.__

And after a year of these emotions sitting like heavy stones, like padlocks and chains attached to his foot, they have twisted into something barely manageable. Twisted and churned into something Harry can’t name.

“We both said some things we regret.”

And it’s this that makes him deviate from routine.

(Harry regrets nothing.)

(Though if he wants to, he can pin the blame on Tom. Tom should’ve started with a cutting edge comment. He didn’t.)

“Oh, like when you outed me? Like when you told the Dursleys that I was bisexual? Like when you broke my trust in you, especially since I told you not to tell anyone else? Like when you got me kicked out of the Dursleys house? Don’t you regret _that?"_

Harry stops, and absently he realizes he’s breathing too heavily, and it feels like there’s water in his eyes, which is strange since he hasn’t cried in quite a while, 11 months and 15 days to be exact, but—

Tom has always been able to make him shatter, has always been able to get under his skin like no one else.

Harry wipes his traitorous tears away. (Only two have fallen, and yet they feel like floods.) He glares at Tom, then delivers the final word, the last little explosion he needs to get out of the way. (They aren’t tears of sadness, he tells himself, they are anger. Anger and hurt, but who would be able to tell?)

( _Tom_ used to.)

“I’m sorry, but I regret nothing.”

Tom says nothing, and for a second Harry is viciously happy that for once, Tom is the one out of words to say. _Tom_ is the one flailing, in his little lifeboat half-way out to sea.

There is one more moment. A second of indecision shows on Tom’s face and Harry wonders if he is glad he is still able to read Tom’s emotions like that. (He wonders if Tom can still read his.)

A small chime rings from Harry’s pocket—his work alarm, he realizes—and the moment breaks. It doesn’t drift off into the wind, or freeze like the tear tracks on Harry’s face have. It breaks, completely and utterly. A crack down the middle, causing the entire, fragile thing, to tumble.

And it’s gone.

Harry can feel his face contort again, this time into a smile, a mask that seems to slice into his face awkwardly. Like his face knows it's not meant to be there but complies anyway. “It’s been really nice and all,” he says, “but I think I’ve got to go now.”

“Look, Harry—” Tom starts, and Harry’s already cold smile grows colder, until it feels like it’s cutting into his face, and it hurts, it hurts to do this to the person who he’d used to be friends with, but Harry steels his heart and reminds himself—

Tom betrayed him _first_.

“Good- _bye_ , Tom,” Harry grits out, and shoulders his way past the other boy, which doesn’t really work, considering the fact that Harry’s smaller and less physically stronger than Tom, a fact that he’d been teased about a lot, back when they were still friends.

(He remembers defending himself, saying he wasn’t brute force. That Harry was simply leaner than Tom, and his upper body wasn’t where his strength lay. He was lean.)

(He remembers Tom simply quirking an eyebrow each time, and pointing out that ‘Being lean isn’t the same thing as being an ant, Harry.’

And then he’d do that heart-stopping smirk.)

But that was back when they were still friends. Ha, he thinks, how could he have thought Tom Riddle was his friend.

(Except he can, he knows how he could have thought Tom Riddle was his friend. It was easy, and it would be easier now, to forgive Tom, to pretend that nothing had ever happened. It would be easy to slip on the façade and sigh over Tom’s silky locks and his eyes.

It would be so, so easy.)

Harry shivers, again, the cold of the chill and their confrontation settling into his bones. He sighs. He’s tired, though he won’t show it. He can’t. Not when he can still feel Tom Riddle’s eyes still boring into his back. (Ready to pounce at the slightest hint of weakness.)

(In another world, Tom’s red eyes _gleam_ as he says: “Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is dead!” And there are people behind him cheering, people in front of him screaming.)

(In another world, Harry opens his eyes and hears his family scream at his death.)

(In another world, there is no Tom and no Harry, and instead, the Final Battle is between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and flames flicker all around them.)

(In this world, there is Harry and there is Tom, and the latter is standing in the cold, alone, watching Harry for the second time walk away.

And they both _want_.)

Harry walks until he can see his office building, and he sighs in relief and annoyance equally. On one hand he is not in a mood to work, not after lunch, and especially not after his talk—if you could even call it that—with Tom on the sidewalk.

On the other, the building is warm, and it has a working coffee machine.

When Harry enters the building, he steps into the elevator and immediately presses the button for the third floor. Not only does it have the coffee machine (priorities), but it also has Cedric; the nicest, kindest person he’s ever met.

Cedric was the one who helped Harry get this job as an assistant in the first place, and is the only person outside of Tom who knows that Harry is no longer living with the Dursleys.

Harry taps his thigh impatiently as he waits for the elevator to start. It’s always slow—Harry thinks the building is maybe fifty years old, but never as slow as today. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the ‘3’ _dings_ and a bright light flashes as the lift’s door opens.

While he’s pouring his coffee, he almost wishes he had time to just stop and chat with Cedric. Actually, now that he’s thinking about it, they never hang together outside of work. With his head throbbing and emotions drained, he wants nothing more than to sit down with kind Cedric, and take him up on that offer to talk with him.

He can’t though. And the fantasy is ruined. The coffee is bitter and gross, even with sugar and cream, but it’s coffee, and hopefully won’t make his headache worse. He had vaguely forgotten about it in the excitement of running into Tom.

Either it had faded and Tom; his own personal, perpetual headache, had brought it back. Or, he really had just been too distracted to notice it.

Whichever it is, it doesn’t really matter, he supposes. He walks to Cedric’s office. He always helps Cedric first if no one else has called him; Cedric is his friend, and a priority.

Recently, he’s been fetching things for Alicia Spinnet as well. Cedric is helping her learn the ropes around the company, and Harry knows her well from school.

He can’t wait to graduate. No more Tom, no more of Tom’s awful friends, and why did all of his reasons for hating school revolve around Tom?

Harry sighs, again. At least this time he can’t see his own breath in front of him. When he approaches Cedric’s office, he smiles a bit. Cedric won’t be rude or pushy, and he’ll probably let Harry sit in his office until he’s actually needed.

“Hi, Cedric.” Harry waves.

Cedric jerks up sharply, before relaxing as he sees it’s Harry. “Hey, Harry. What’s up?” he asks, before adding, “You okay?” once he sees Harry’s face.

“Fine,” Harry responds. He’s not really in the mood for it today, not after the talk with the Weasleys and Hermione, the confrontation with Tom outside…

Harry looks at the clock. It’s not even two yet.

“Harry…” Cedric starts.

Harry shakes his head sharply, and just like he thought, Cedric says nothing else and Harry can feel his mood lift a bit. Cedric only nods and gestures to his couch, which means Harry can collapse there until some other employee needs Harry to fetch something.

Harry sits on the poor-quality couch and sinks into it, as deep as he can, before tilting his head back and closing his eyes. The sofa smells like coffee and Cedric, and Harry sits there and doesn’t think about anything for a while, right up until Mafalda Hopkirk asks him to come and help her.

Work goes by in a blur after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did we mention that Harry and Tom (and because of this, their friends) are 17? If we didn't here you go, they are 17! 
> 
> You might be wondering how Cedric, who is 20 if Harry is 17, has a desk job at a company, and the answer is that his dad owns the company, and that is why Harry is only an assistant, cause, 17, and Cedric is sweet. We took time to mull this over akbfh
> 
> Anyways that was the chapter! Thank you for reading, hope it was good, and let us know your thoughts! <3 :)


	3. plans (i'll get to you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “As long as my cabin isn’t ruined, destroyed, or vandalized when I get it back, it’s fine.”
> 
> And with that, Granger shared a glance with Weasley before leaning forward, her eyes bright with mystery. “So, here’s what we’re going to do…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third chapter, go go go. (This chapter is a bit short, only about 1700 words <3 sorry bout that) Thanks for clicking on this work, and hope you enjoy!

_Earlier..._

Draco sneered as he surveyed the restaurant Weasel had chosen for them to meet in. It was dark and dirty; the walls were positively _filthy_ , and there was a stubborn stink coming from one of the pipes. 

Really, why was he here, again? He could have been at the Manor, reading French poetry—pah, he doubted Weasley had ever even heard of it—and instead he was _here_. 

Oh, right. It was for Potter. Really, they’d been rivals for god’s sake, so you’d wonder why Draco would want to _help_ him. It wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, please. Him and Potter had simply been...more civil recently, and so what if the stupid prat was funny? Anyone could be funny. Weasley’s face, for example. That was funny.

But that was why he was here, and it was an entirely selfish reason. Potter wasn’t the same, and was no longer entertaining, just mopey. 

So here Draco was. Offering the Malfoy winter cabin to Harry Potter.

And Tom Riddle.

(And now that he’s thought that, what an utterly _absurd_ idea. Tom would murder him if this didn’t go well, and heavens knew Potter held grudges. Perhaps worse than his dead mother, even.)

As his nose wrinkled at the site chosen, he scanned the room and spotted the table he was supposed to walk over to. What with Granger’s hair being so...bushy, and Weasley’s being so red, it was fairly easy to spot it.

He sauntered over, knowing perfectly well that his nose was higher in the air than socially acceptable. Well, for anyone who wasn’t a Malfoy at least.

“Granger.” He nodded towards the girl.

“Weasley.” And he honestly wasn’t trying to keep the sneer out of his voice. When it became apparent Weasley was affronted, Draco rolled his eyes. _He should be grateful I refrained from calling him Weaslbee, or anything else that came to mind._ (And trust him, a whole _lot_ of things came to mind.)

But he sighed, and held on to his small sprinkle of patience and restraint. When he peered around the table after delicately sitting, he was pleased to note that Crabbe and Goyle were both there, as well as Rodolphus. He didn’t want to sit and be in this place any longer than necessary, so no waiting for his friends to be on time.

“So,” Granger started, “you know that Harry—” Draco curled his lip at the name as a reflex, ignoring the way Weasley clenched his jaw. He was here, right, _trying_ to make peace, but he wouldn't change everything about himself to suit the references of Potter’s friends. (He quite liked himself, thank you very much.) “—has been...depressed lately.”

 _Way to start, Granger_ , Draco thought. _Telling your friend’s enemies_ — _not that she knows I’m not Potter’s enemy, but it never hurts to be cautious_ — _about him being depressed._

Draco sneered anyway. “And what’s that to us?” he asked, perhaps just to be contrary. “Why should we care about Potter?” He didn’t—well, maybe a little bit— _care_. Malfoys didn’t care. They… manipulated people into thinking they cared. Yes, that was exactly what Draco was doing right now. Manipulating. 

Weasel gave him a flat look. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

Draco didn’t really have an answer to that, so he rolled his eyes. It was a perfectly acceptable answer anyway. 

When Draco glanced at Crabbe and Goyle, it was what he was expecting. Diligently silent, they honestly probably didn’t know what they were here for. Rodolphus tilted his head.

“We came for Tom.”

_Well…_

“Yeah, we came for Tom!” Crabbe piped up, then seemed to shrink—even if he was the largest—under the force of the table’s collective glares. 

“So what does this have to do with him?” Rodolphus finished, seemingly not acknowledging Crabbe’s statement. Though Draco appreciated that Crabbe had an idea of what was going on.

Surprisingly, it was Weasley who answered this question.

“Don’t act like Tom hasn’t been a right bastard. More than usual anyway.” And as much as Draco hated to admit it in the face of Weasley’s amusement, he was right. Tom was miserable, but instead of being sad like a normal person, he just became an arse.

To everyone.

For the past eleven months and fifteen days. (Not that Draco was counting each and every second Harry wouldn’t talk to him. Or each and every minute that Tom was threatening to murder him. Nope.

Not at _all_.) 

Rodolphus leaned back; he seemed to not have an answer. He knew it, Draco knew it; everyone at the table knew it. Like he’d said, Weasley was _right_. 

When no one disagreed with Weasley, (really, someone should’ve humbled him, it didn’t matter if he was right), Granger spoke again.

“We’re going to make sure they sort out their differences.”

Rodolphus scoffed, and Draco had to resist the urge to kill him. They were on a fucking peace talk, hmm? He hadn’t sacrificed his French poetry just for Rodolphus, bastard he was, to ruin the whole thing! 

“That’s in simple terms, right? We all know that Tom and Potter don’t just have ‘differences’ to sort out.”

Silence followed his statement. 

And then Loony, Luna, whatever her name was, Draco hadn’t even known she was at the table, leaned forward, and put a finger to her lips, as if she were telling them a secret. 

“I agree, they’ve got a lot of romantic tension, you know. They should sort that out,” she hummed. 

Longbottom, (really, why had Draco not realized these two had joined the table? Was he getting—god forbid— _sloppy_?) laughed nervously

Draco sighed. This was a mess, and that was saying something, considering he’d overseen his Mother and Father’s talks when he was a kid.

“What Granger is trying to say, is that it’s been a year of these two being mean to each other, and then whining about how they were mean to one another. And we need to put an end to it. Frankly, I’m tired of Tom looking murderous every time someone other than Potter opens their mouths!”

Draco was also missing Harry, but they didn’t talk about that.

The table had seemed to get Draco’s pretty straight forward explanation—why was he friends with these idiots again?—Before Goyle spoke for the first time that afternoon.

“Why do you guys want them friends again? Didn’t Tom do something really bad to Potter or whatever?”

And Potter’s entourage blinked, before Longbottom answered.

“Because Harry was always happier with Riddle. That’s just the way it was. And yeah, Riddle was an arse and a bastard—” 

“Like _that’s_ anything new,” Granger said.

“—and did who-knows-what to Harry, but after a year, you can tell Harry’s not angry. He’s just upset. This is something that can be forgiven.”

Weasley mumbled something under his breath that Draco strained to catch.

“Wouldn’t say he’s not angry…”

Draco sighed again. 

“As long as my cabin isn’t ruined, destroyed, or vandalized when I get it back, it’s fine.”

“Cabin?” Crabbe turned to him.

And with that, Granger shared a glance with Weasley before leaning forward, her eyes bright with mystery. “So, here’s what we’re going to do…”

* * *

_Now, three days later, Thursday..._

The next morning, Harry’s woken up by his phone buzzing. Loudly. He reaches over for his glasses, before fumbling with his phone, dropping it on the carpet. Harry swears, and then when he picks his phone up, starts to read the text. 

_Dear Harry James Potter,_

_We would be delighted to invite you to a wonderful winter time at the_

_Malfoy’s cabin. Play games, watch television, read marvellous books and_

_More with friends!_

_Tonight, 7pm._

_Please respond as soon as possible,_

_The G.T.A.H.B.T club._

Under that, there’s another text from Ron that says: 

_ <Roonil Wazlib> please harry. Hermione and me will both be here! cmon it'll be fun. _

Harry wonders what G.T.A.H.B.T stands for. (If he’d known what it meant, he might have declined going, but he doesn’t know, so he brushes the thought away.) 

He can’t be bothered to argue with Ron so early in the morning--he needs at least two cups of coffee for that—so he types, _Alright alright, i'll come._

 _Yay!_ Ron sends back. Underneath there’s a gif, and then Ron starts to type something else. 

He waits a few seconds before the text comes in, the special tone that Ron set for himself on Harry’s phone playing. 

_btw,_ Harry reads, _there might be other people there ;) cya!_

Ron’s icon goes offline. 

_Active just now… active one minute ago…_

Harry groans and falls back onto his pillow. It’s too damn early to deal with this.

* * *

Tom stares at his phone blankly. 

_Dear Tom Marvolo Riddle,_

_We would be delighted to invite you to a wonderful winter time at the_

_Malfoy’s cabin. Play board games, read enchanting books, and have_

_a tranquil and fun time with friends!_

_Tonight, 7pm._

_Please respond as soon as possible,_

_The G.T.A.H.B.T club._

He sighs. What on earth was the G.T.A.H.B.T club? As he prepares to type in _No._ and block the number, another text comes in.

_ <Rudolphusss> Tom, please. Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco will be there. You can play chess with Draco, his head is getting too big. And you know that the Malfoys have loads of good books. It will be a good time. Besides, we haven’t had any get-togethers recently. Come? _

Tom’s lip twitches upward in an effort to not curl it. He sighs. He doesn’t have get-togethers because they are boring. Most of them consist of Draco whining, and Crabbe and Goyle are plain stupid. Despite Draco insisting they have their purposes, they aren’t tolerable for more than 1.5 hours.

Though… they’d probably stay in the kitchen the majority of the time...and he does so enjoy beating Draco at chess...and Rodolphus is all right to be around, Tom supposes. He groans, dropping his head back. The Malfoys _do_ have really good books. 

_ <Lord_Voldemort> Fine. I'll be there. _

Rodolphus hearted the message, and just as he set his phone down it dinged again. He put his cup of tea down slightly too hard, exhaling harshly through his nose.

_ <Dragonis> See you there, then. _

Tom turned around and went back to sleep, leaving his phone on the counter. He’d deal with his minions later. 

(Later he’d regret this when he woke to cold, wasted tea, but currently he couldn’t bring himself to care.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, leave a kudos or comment if you feel like it <3 
> 
> (what does G.H.A.T.B.T stand for, you might ask,,, ahaha you'll have to wait and see ;) <3)


	4. blue-grey (grey-blue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he tugs on the blanket, the blanket tugs back. His eyes slip closed, just for a second.
> 
>  _You have_ got _to be kidding me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Here is chapter four! Thank you so much for reading this work, we hope you enjoy!

Driving, Harry thinks, is an especially monotonous activity. He taps his finger against the steering wheel at a red light, impatiently; he's been driving for nearly an _hour_ , after all. As it turns out that the Malfoy family cabin is very far away, somewhere in Hampshire or whatnot. 

It’s secluded and closed off, somewhere away from the city, anyway. It’s also supposed to be very pretty, according to Draco, and seeing as it has snowed quite heavily the past three days, he’s sure it’s some sort of winter wonderland.

Harry has always had a love-hate relationship with snow, and it shows, now. He’ll need to drive another _forty-five minutes_ —no, Harry is not joking, though he wishes he is—before arriving at the cabin, because there is a small bit of ice on the road, and he is not going to be crashing the car, thank you. He’d bought it himself, had needed to save up for literal _years_ to buy it. 

London and the surrounding areas, luckily, are rather good at dealing with ice and snow, even if it doesn’t come all that often where he lives.

This year is, apparently, the coldest it’s ever been since 1993. Harry had brought lots of winter clothes—well, not that he has many. The Weasleys, kind as always, had lent him some worn coats and jackets and such for this trip. 

He sighs. Ron and Hermione had texted him that they were on their way as well. He remembers Ron’s cryptic text.

_There might be others there too ;)_

What does that even _mean_ ? And—most importantly, maybe—who had taught Ron how to use the winky face emoji, anyway? Hermione wouldn’t have; she _despises_ emojis with a passion. They’d had late-night talks about this with Ron, debating the pros and cons of using emojis.

(" _They’re useful, and quick to type and—”_ )

Why is he thinking about this, anyway? Harry turns up the radio, hoping to drown out the mystery of some random people being at the cabin. Perhaps Ron meant that the cabin is so large that other people were renting it, too? On the other side of the cabin?

But...Why a winky face then? (Is there any excuse for the winky face, really. No, Harry answers himself. No, there damn well isn’t.) Ron has another meaning, Harry is sure of it. Though, he had said ‘might be’ maybe they wouldn’t be there, maybe the Malfoys sent out this invitation to others as well, expecting only one group to respond?

Harry doesn’t know. He’s simply hoping he could have a nice night with his two best friends. Who knows, maybe it’s them apologizing for cornering him during their lunch at the Burrow? 

The road stretches ahead in front of him. It’s about six twenty in the evening, and the sun is low in the sky, looking for all like a runny egg. The forest beside him—he’s forgotten the name—is full of shadows from the moon, and he can barely see anything. 

He turns again, meanwhile checking his phone for any more messages from Ron or Hermione, perhaps a confirmation or denial of anyone extra coming. Honestly, the more Harry thinks about it, the more reasonable (and unreasonable) explanations he comes up with.

In an effort to focus on the road and stop overthinking, Harry leans over and switches the radio to another channel.. A song comes on, from some up and coming big-shot artist. It’s not bad, got a catchy tune that Harry can easily get stuck in his head. Harry hums along to the song and turns on his headlights, making another turn.

He checks the time on his phone, and the GPS says he should be there in about thirty minutes. 

Still no messages from his friends. 

* * *

  
When Harry pulls up to the cabin, he immediately feels relieved. Not only because he gets to stop driving, but because he can see his friend’s cars parked nearby. Well, _one_ of his friend’s cars anyway. Not that he recognizes it, but Ron or Hermione could have gotten a lift or something from a mutual friend. 

_Then why wouldn’t they have texted they were there?_ The over-paranoid part of his brain thinks. 

He discards that thought; they were probably excited, or distracted. (Harry shudders at the thought of what they could’ve been distracted or excited doing. His best friends have been dating for about a year now, and he doesn’t know how long they’ve been there.)

(It’s probably best not to think about that, actually.) 

He parks the car slowly. He’s never really been the best at that, and had only _just_ passed his driving test on account of his parking, and so he takes several minutes to park properly, swearing in the meantime. Harry finally gets out of the car, and a gust of cold wind hits him like a truck. It’s freezing, out here. At least in London there’s the heat of other buildings and people. 

Harry glances at the cabin, and for a second forgets about the cold. It’s beautiful. It’s fancy as well—the entrance is marked by a looping gold sign, and Harry almost snorts. How very _Malfoy_ -like—but also _pretty_. The snow looks completely undisturbed, crisp and fresh and clean, and the cabin has lights lit from the inside, glowing slightly around curtained windows.

Sunset colors—red, pink, orange, yellow, a smudge of purple—are branching out across the sky, and Harry exhales, seeing his fog breath in front of him, and somehow that makes him feel even more relaxed. He feels lulled, and sleepy, the car ride having tired him out, and now the serenity that seems to surround the cabin, wraps around him, as well.

It whispers into his ears, a soothing sort of melody, and shines in front of his eyes. His eyelids flutter slightly at the sight he sees, and he almost thinks—he almost _wants_ —to just stand there forever and watch the sun set. 

Almost.

Harry suddenly shudders, and though the peace isn’t broken, he’s reminded of where he is, and the weather. Ron and Hermione are waiting for him inside, he thinks to himself. He shouldn’t stand here forever. 

The cold seeps into him, seemingly abruptly, in spite of his layers of clothes. (He always did get cold easily.) Harry realises he’s shivering, and that, more than anything, urges him to make the trek up to the cabin.

He stomps up the cabin, reminded strangely, all of a sudden, of the winters with the Dursleys, slaving outside to scrape ice off the car and watching Dudley and his friends playing in the snow, occasionally being pelted by snowballs. 

_Don’t think about that_ , Harry thinks to himself. He doesn’t want to dirty this trip with the memories of the Dursleys. 

This is a _new_ winter memory.

Harry turns the knob of the cabin door and it swings open instantly, bathing the snow behind him a bright yellow from the light. He’s glad that it’s not snowing yet, now that he thinks about it. He doesn’t particularly fancy having to shake down like a dog. It will definitely be snowing later tonight though, and Harry smiles at the picture of hot chocolate and watching the snowfall. 

It isn’t until he turns around to shut the door, and sees a singular line of footsteps—his—leading to the cabin, that it occurs to him.

Shouldn’t there be _two_ more sets of footsteps for Ron and Hermione there too? 

But the door has been swung shut, and just as Harry’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, he hears the lock _click_. 

He blinks, and then blinks again. Now that he thinks about it, why was the door open in the first place? The Malfoys had, presumably, locked the door, and so would Ron and Hermione… 

His heart is already beating too fast, too rapidly and he can feel it, reverberating through his entire body. What if he’s about to be murdered? Oh, god, a cabin in the middle of the woods, this is a perfect horror movie scenario, and Harry’s alone—

He inhales sharply, slightly numb fingers finally gripping his cell. He has to call Ron and Hermione, he needs to drive away from here. And, oh shit, what about the other car? Is that the serial killer? That is definitely the serial killer, he’s about to get murdered. 

_Stop overthinking, Potter_ , the sensible part in his head says. Ron and Hermione probably just entered through the back door, or something. Funnily enough, Harry thinks, now that he’s realized it, the sensible part in his head sounds a bit like Draco.

He's just unlocking his phone when a voice starts behind him.

“It’s no use. Cell service is down.”

That hauntingly familiar voice is there again. He’d heard it three days ago, in the street, in their confrontation, and—

Oh, _fuck_. 

Harry whips around, his cell phone clattering to the floor loudly, slipping through his fingers. Harry doesn’t even pick it up to see if it’s cracked. 

Because Tom Riddle—of fucking course it’s him, when has luck ever favoured Harry—is standing eight steps (for Harry at least, the bastard could probably get there in less) away. _Tom_ (and so many memories—happy, sad, _anger_ —accompany that three-letter name but he pushes them down, now isn’t the time for them). 

Before that day, Harry had thought that being so shocked your mouth opens was a trope. A commonly used trope, sure, but that was all it was. Not something that happened in real life. 

Harry’s mouth drops open anyway. 

“You don’t need to look so happy to see me.” Tom smirks sardonically, voice only slightly bitter. 

Harry clicks his mouth shut and clears his throat. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out; he feels like he’s choking, but there’s nothing to choke on but empty air. 

Finally, after what feels like an eternity but really should only be about nine seconds, Harry asks, “How-how’d you get locked in? Your footsteps aren’t tracked in the snow out front...” He is proud of himself at the fact that he only stutters once. 

(The fact that it was his, or their, friends that did this… Harry decides to deal with the emotional ramifications of that _later_.) 

“Oh, well, if you’re so—ah— _observant_ , why didn’t _you_ notice earlier that this was a set-up?” Tom says, curling his lip. The expression in his eyes, carved on his face, is one that Harry recognizes, one that works well to intimidate people. 

Harry narrows his eyes. _He’s_ not going to be intimidated. 

“You didn’t either, genius.” His voice is a sarcastic drawl. “I seem to recall you being the smarter one in our friendship, and I don’t think my memory is fading as you, y’know, _reminded_ me of it several times, but apparently not.” 

He turns his head, observing the front room of the cabin, though it’s mostly for show. “Now: How. Did. You. Get. Locked. _In_?” Harry asks. Well, demands, really.

Tom brings his hand up and rubs his temple, and Harry’s eyes unconsciously relax slightly. The motion is one Harry has seen many times before. 

“They told me that Narcissa and Lucius had a policy about dragging snow in through the front, and I would need to come in through the back door,” Tom says, then continues: “I walked in, and hadn’t even turned around to shut the door before it was shut for me.” He leans his hip on the doorway he stands in and stays there, hands in his pockets. When Harry peeks—subtly, of course—around him he sees a hallway, one he assumes leads to the rest of the cabin.

Harry simply nods, processing, before offering an answer himself. “I walked in and saw it shut _after_ I realized there was something strange.”

Tom nods, once sharply, and Harry begins to scan Tom, taking in his attire and deciding that he must’ve changed into it. That sounds like a wonderful idea to Harry, and then he can sit in the room he claimed as his and mope. Maybe there’s a journal somewhere. That way Harry can write down everything he is going to yell at his friends as soon as he gets home on Monday. Monday...

...An _entire weekend?_

Forget about Harry yelling at them, he’s going to fucking _crucify_ them.

Harry shakes his head. When he blinks up to look at Tom, Tom is scrutinizing him with piercing eyes, mouth a straight, flat line. 

(Harry could say something. He could snark and rage. He could yell at Tom to let his frustrations out.

And it’s _so_ tempting. It’s dangling in front of him, he could choose to. He’d feel better, and it wasn’t like Tom didn’t _deserve_ it. He wonders if Tom is thinking the same thing, and; oh, now that Harry thinks about it… Here they are, angry and trapped, and hateful. Annoyance is probably just as prominent in Tom as it is in him.) 

Green locks with blue-grey, and they hold each other’s gazes, neither one of them ending the unintentional staring contest. This moment of indecision that they each have. For a second there is that tension again; they both see what is swirling in each other’s eyes, they both know how the other feels, and there is that rubber band, stretching and stretching and _stretching_ —

Tom turns his head. 

Harry exhales. 

The band snaps.

An expression of relief, and even slight triumph, crosses his face. The indecision has broken with the band, they have each decided not to take this out on eachother. There is still some tension, settling from the break. It has not exploded or vanished, it is simply put aside until it can be used again.

(Harry wonders how many times the tension will be used. He wonders if it will arise every time they come across one another.)

(He wonders if at some point, instead of Tom turning his head he will open his mouth and speak.

He wonders if the words that will come out will be angry or soft. Tense or familiar.)

It is awkward, for a moment. Neither of them knows what to say. Harry can’t ever remember a moment in their friendship when neither had known what to say to the other. (He’s sure they exist, except none could ever be likened to currently, in this cabin. None so… tense.)

Harry pushes off his shoes and shrugs off his jacket. Leaving his footwear at the door and hooking his jacket on a rack, he treads in his socks past Tom, resisting the urge to look at his face, to know what he’s thinking. 

The few beats it takes to simply walk past Tom feel like minutes, and Harry feels too warm, and the air is too charged with all the things they didn’t say. _‘You promised you wouldn’t_ —”

All the things still on the tip of Harry’s tongue. 

He was right about the hallway, at least. He finds stairs and climbs them, glad it’s slightly warmer up there as well. _That’s because heat rises, Harry, you should know this! I can’t believe…_ Harry’s lips tilt up at the way that thought sparked some sort of Hermione monologue.

Except they turn down a moment later. Strangely, he misses that. He wishes Hermione were standing here, lecturing him about third grade science, ignoring him when he says he knows already.

Instead, Tom Riddle is down stairs for whatever reason, and Hermione was probably a part of how and why he was there..

Instead of Ron rolling his eyes, and grabbing food so they can all set in to watch a movie or play a board game, (— _Hermione, we know!_ — _)_ Harry is standing alone in one of the bedrooms, knowing that at some point he will have to go downstairs again and likely see Tom.

Harry drops his bags down with a thud, and flops on the bed, feeling melancholy. While there’s always the chance Tom will be in his own room whenever Harry chooses to go downstairs, it’s unlikely _Harry_ would ever get that lucky.

 _And,_ Harry thinks, blowing air out and slowly sitting up, _there’s no way I can avoid him all weekend._ He is sitting and staring through the window at the sky, now a deep maroon, no longer feeling that serenity nor sleepiness, when his stomach growls.

He sits for another ten minutes before his stomach growls again, and another five minutes pass before it rumbles once more. 

Harry stands up irritatedly, opening his door and walking down the stairs. His irritation steadily increases when he nearly trips over his things, and then stubs his toe whilst turning the corner to the staircase.

Oddly enough, Tom’s stupid face appears in his head and _that’s_ the cherry on top. Harry doesn’t have a clue why he’s thinking about Tom, only that he wants to throw one of his stupid books—preferably a thick, dusty one—at his face.

When he reaches downstairs, he takes a deep inhale. And another. And another, and about three more before he’s calm enough to walk to the kitchen. He’s always been clumsier when he’s mad, and he doesn’t have any inclination to walk into a wall or hit himself in the head with the refrigerator door. _Especially_ in front of Tom. 

He’s not quite focused as he fixes himself a sandwich, simply going through the motions of making his dinner… Bread… Ham… oh, yay, lettuce… 

Balancing his plate between his two hands he goes to walk upstairs before he realizes that he’d have to come back down to do the dishes anyways, and then go back up, and even though that’s just an extra two trips, with the way Harry’s feeling right now, it might as well be walking eight blocks in the heavy snow.

He swivels over to the couch and settles there, placing his plate on the table in front of him, pulling up his plaid pajama pants, grabbing a random book from the Malfoy’s library. Harry reaches for a stray blanket he sees to the right of him, not looking up.

When he tugs on the blanket, the blanket tugs back.

He purses his lips confusedly, still not looking up, assuming it’s simply under a pillow or something. The sofa, maybe? He just tugs again.

It tugs back, harder.

His eyes slip closed, just for a second.

The sofa can’t tug back.

 _You have_ got _to be kidding me._

He clenches his hand harder around the blanket. A mantra is playing in his head on a loop, except he can’t pick out the words, it’s just panicking. His heart skips a beat and he opens his eyes. Perhaps he should tug harder?

Except he doesn’t tug again. Instead, _finally_ , Harry looks up, and—

Green meets grey-blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Look out, there's tension. It's happening people. Confrontation and blanket wars. 
> 
> If you liked it, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment! (Or both!) We hope you enjoyed. <3 :)


	5. won't you remember?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom is reading in the dim light of the room, just the flickering of the movie illuminating his book pages. Harry’s always been jealous of that, of the way that Tom could so effortlessly read in the dark, but he doesn’t feel jealousy right now.
> 
> Because Tom looks _enchanting. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo, next chapter! <3 we hope you guys like it! :))

Maybe this is a hallucination? He certainly _hopes_ it’s a hallucination, but—no, it won’t be. _Especially_ with the luck he’s been having lately—there are about five bedrooms in the cabin, god-knows how many sofas, and he’s just sat on the same one as—

As—

No. He is _not_ doing this. If he ignores Tom, maybe it’ll all go away, maybe he’ll wake up in his one-bedroom flat in the middle of London, maybe it’s all a dream. Harry pinches himself—hopefully then he’ll wake up?—and _ouch_ , that really hurt!

So. Not a dream, then. Unfortunately. 

Harry rubs his elbow where he’d pinched it, determinedly _not_ looking at Tom. 

There is silence, unsaid words filling the awkward air up. Unspoken sentences are floating around them, letters meshing to form paragraphs they’ve only ever thought, and Harry feels disoriented with the weight of it all, and the lightness of it. No one’s said anything, there is no act to follow. He thinks the tension from before has reawakened, the tension that he knew was set aside for later; he supposes this is _later._

_This_ is what they get for leaving the tension for later. 

His cheeks are heating up, burning slightly and he hopes Tom can’t tell, is _praying,_ that Tom can’t tell. 

(If he had bothered to check, he would’ve seen Tom’s stiff posture, his white knuckles curled around the blanket, the way his eyes are averted to the left, and the inelegant way he shifts on the sofa.)

As it is, he doesn’t bother to check, and instead stares very, very hard at his own hand tightening nervously around his side of the blanket. _And why is he still holding the blanket?_

His fingers twitch slightly. He is sweaty, and he doesn’t want to move, and his short nails are digging into the flesh of his palm, leaving white indents in his skin, but as he watches they fade within seconds, and then he can feel the heavy weight of the tension pressing down on him again, _suffocating_ him-

Harry takes a deep breath, mind blank, he doesn’t even _know_ what he is going to say, but it ends up not mattering.

It ends up not mattering because without warning there is a _yank_ on the other side of the blanket, and Harry topples forwards with a yelp.

Despite his sweaty grip, he’s still clutching onto the blanket, and though the unspoken words fluttering in the air are still there, (he thinks they always will be, until they finally say them) there is not nearly the same amount of embarrassment, of uncertainty.

Instead Harry glares up at Tom, and narrows his eyes. Familiar annoyance, an emotion that seems particularly attuned to Tom recently; prickles in his stomach. 

Harry yanks back. _Harder._

When Tom wavers forward, Harry can’t help the smirk that rises on his face. He wonders if the sight of it will make Tom’s heart feel like Harry’s does when Tom smirks.

Tom’s eyes _do_ widen, and then Tom huffs out a breath, pressing his lips together. Harry watches him stare down at the blanket, watches as Tom flexes his hands slightly. Harry’s head tilts unconsciously as he observes Tom’s hands. His fingers that are long and straining tightly around the blanket. His nails are longer than Harry’s as well, but Harry has always known that.

He’s always known that Tom’s hands are bigger than Harry’s, though their palms are _almost_ the same size. Always known that Tom’s nails are longer than Harry’s, always known that his fingers curl around a quill gracefully, helped by the length of them.

He’s always known quite a bit about Tom.

He becomes aware that he’s been staring for far too long because Tom _pulls_ and Harry _refuses_ to let go and then he is toppling onto his stomach, blanket still held in his fists.

Harry gapes, twisted slightly in the blanket and crawling up onto his knees. What the hell? If he was annoyed, he’s beyond frustrated now. 

When he’s detangled and sitting on his knees, he jerks his head up, completely prepared to impulsively snarl some insult or another at Tom—

They are only inches apart.

Sitting much too close now that Harry has become upright, Harry’s conscious of Tom’s widened eyes, of the way Tom’s breath is heavy against Harry’s cheek, of the way Tom’s knee juts into Harry’s thigh because of the way they are sitting and it’s not comfortable but Harry doesn’t move.

Harry doesn’t move.

It is Tom who wrenches back, light from the kitchen behind them catching on his face and highlighting all the right things.

And the shade of pale pink that is barely noticeable on his cheeks.

But Harry has _always_ noticed Tom.

There is stillness. Stillness and heaving chests but that it is it, that is all there is to the world right now; Harry and Tom, Tom and Harry, the stagnancy of their breaths, soft, so soft against the cold air. 

And Harry doesn’t know what in the world possesses him. He’s flustered and irritated and _lonely_ , he's just spent the last hour sulking and thinking about his friends and here Tom is, looking like that with the kitchen light hooking around his cheekbones and—

“Can’t we just share it?”

Tom’s head snaps over to stare at him. His face is wiped blank once again, in that way that only Tom knows how to do.

Harry hates it. Tom used to never do that to him, never used to go expressionless and stare at him with vacant eyes. But now he does.

Tom looks at Harry; at the blanket Harry still has his finger curled loosely around, and Harry’s head is filled with a rushing, white noise so loud it almost drowns out Tom’s response.

“...I suppose we can. Were you reading?” He asks, eyeing the book that had fallen to the floor in their dispute.

The static in his ears quiets. 

(And he wonders if it will continue to do that every time Tom is near.)

“I was, though now that I think about it, the book is probably more to your taste,” Harry admits, a tad sheepishly. Harry opens his mouth again, but Tom speaks instead.

“You can watch a movie and I’ll read?” And it doesn’t even matter to Harry that Tom’s voice sounds so faux-casual it’s nearly _painful,_ it doesn’t matter that this is _insane,_ and that Harry has no idea what is going on.

It doesn’t matter, because Harry was going to say that. Harry was going to suggest that and Harry feels, so abruptly, like he is back to a year ago. That Tom has just said something Harry was going to say because they just know each other that well. 

And he wonders if Tom did it because of that, did Tom suggest it because he knew Harry would? Did Tom simply say it without thinking? 

Is it still a habit that hasn’t been broken yet? Something fragile that hasn’t been absolutely splintered like their friendship was? Something that was salvaged from the shipwreck? Harry doesn’t know, can’t tell, doesn’t _care._

His heart hurts, so _terribly._ His heart hurts in the way it has all eleven months and seventeen damn days of this year. He vaguely wonders if emotional whiplash is a thing, because if so, he’s definitely gotten it from this moment with Tom.

“Harry?” 

It’s Tom’s voice that snaps him out of his head, leaving him blinking up at the other boy.

“So? What movie do you want to put on?” And Tom is already holding the book Harry had picked out, is already holding the remote to the TV, and that is just _so_ like Tom. To take initiative like that. To not wait for Harry’s answer.

“Erm…” And without thinking he perks up. “Lord of the Rings!”

Tom scowls and sits back, and despite his apparent dislike for the movie series, he begins to search for the first one on the TV.

“How did I know you’d say that,” Tom mutters under his breath, and Harry can’t help the twitch of his lips. Isn’t even thinking about it, isn’t thinking about the Dursley’s or their fight or anything other than this, this moment here. Lord of the Rings, and Tom.

“If you knew, why didn’t you suggest something?” Harry asked innocently, getting comfy. 

“Because I knew you’d shoot down my suggestions, and the minute I did suggest something, you’d remember that _this_ series exists.” Tom is scrolling through the movies, finding the right one.

“You just don’t like it because Gandalf reminds you of—”

“ _Dumbledore._ Yes, I know your theory.” He sneers at Dumbledore’s name, and Harry thinks he can even see his eye twitch.

Harry sighs. “It’s not a theory if it’s _correct._ And you _know_ it. Is there some other reason?”

“Of course there is! It’s an asinine—”

“Shut it. We’ve had this discussion before and you _floundered.”_ Harry cackles, tossing his head back. “We both know it’s because of Gandalf and Dumbledore. Now stop stalling and _play_ it already!”

And Harry is focused in the beginning, he really is.

But his mind wanders. His mind wanders onto Tom finishing his accusation about Dumbledore, about how the book Harry picked out suited Tom more than Harry himself. His mind drifts onto Tom knowing he’d pick Lord of the Rings, of Tom being _Tom._

And Harry doesn’t even _want_ to watch the movie anymore.

He continues his thought process but, the heat of Tom’s leg next to his is _burning,_ distracting his head from finishing any of his musing. He feels too hot under the blanket with Tom, and he glances to his right.

Tom is reading in the dim light of the room, just the flickering of the movie illuminating his book pages. Harry’s always been jealous of that, of the way that Tom could so effortlessly read in the dark, but he doesn’t feel jealousy right now.

Because Tom looks _enchanting._

And without thinking about it, that’s what Harry does for the rest of the movie. His eyes stray only twice back to the screen, quick seconds away from Tom’s half lidded eyes. Away from the shadowing under Tom’s jawline from the movie light and the way his lips part slightly while he’s reading, moving faintly, as though he were mouthing them discreetly.

The way he is so entranced into his book, the way _that_ curl slips over his brow.

(The way Harry is drawn into his movies, his friends, his sports. The way his eyes light up when he sees treacle tart; the same way they do— _did_ —for Tom.) 

But Harry knows nothing of what Tom sees, and when the movie shutters to an end, Harry blinks. 

His cheeks are practically _bathed_ in scarlet as he realizes he’s been _drooling_ over Tom this entire movie. He wants to bury his face in his hands and never emerge again, except he can’t because— _oh God_ —Tom is blinking too, coming out of his book as the credits play a tad too loudly, and Tom looks really cute like that but—

Harry does the only logical thing he can do in this situation, and flops backwards onto the cushions, closing his eyes and curling into himself.

He knows that Tom has seen Harry dead asleep enough times to realize that Harry’s not fully asleep but perhaps he’ll assume Harry’s only drowsing? 

Though, Harry _is_ tired. His eyelids sting slightly when he’s closing them, feeling dry and he exhales softy and he relaxes into the cushions even more. The couch is comfortable, and even though he’s red-faced and sort of wants to go scream into a pillow and then become a recluse for the rest of his life, he feels like this might be the fastest he’s ever fallen asleep.

He hears Tom sigh.

“Oh, Harry…”

_Oh, no._

He’s sure that he’s caught, and it sets his heart to a quicker pace. His near dozing state is paused, for a second, before he hears Tom place his book down, pages flipping and scraping against each other. 

The sound, incomprehensibly, slows his pulse down. It’s calming.

He startles when hands touch him. Tom’s hands. He’s lucky he didn’t shift too much, but Tom shushes him anyways.

The hands are on his face, for such a short period of time and Harry desperately wants to open his eyes, but he can’t.

A chilly palm, Harry assumes because it wasn’t under the blanket, slides onto the cheek not pressed into the pillows. It rests there for _one, two_ —

And then it is pulling away again, before it can be warmed by Harry’s skin. Harry only has to wait for a second until the hand is back, and it brushes through his hair, pushing the fringe off his forehead.

And then it is gone again. The fringe falls back down and Tom does not move it again, does not come back. Harry sits in confusion until Tom gently grabs him, and maneuvers him until he’s lying flat on his back. Once he is, Tom slips a pillow under Harry’s head, and there is a lull once more.

Harry turns onto his side, and brings his hands up to the pillow his head is resting on. _Unfathomably,_ Tom has just tucked Harry in. Tom has just put a pillow under his head and has just tossed the blanket over Harry’s body.

The blanket that, two hours ago, they had just been fighting over. It is placed over Harry now, soft and soothing.

Like Tom’s hand is. The hand that had just _stroked Harry’s cheek._

This has to be fictitious. A deception. Harry must already be asleep, and dreaming. Wait, no. That would be saying he was dreaming about Tom stroking his check and hair and tucking him in.

Harry is exhausted and barely coherent and it hasn’t even been a day since he walked through those cabin doors. He feels shocked, in a tired sort of way. In a muted sense, the way you feel all emotions when you are just so, suddenly drained.

And Harry does feel drained. He was annoyed and angry and sulky and flustered and happy and longing and hurt and sad and confused and lost and shocked, and most of those were within the past _three hours._

As Harry sleepily mulls this over, absentmindedly pulling the blanket tighter around himself, there’s a dip in the couch.

Harry feels his heart stutter, skipping a beat before returning to normal.

_Tom’s sleeping here._

There is rustling, most likely Tom getting comfortable with his own blanket, and Harry’s eyes slide open.

And he lies there like that for a while. Despite wanting to slip into a slumber and stay there, Harry lays with his eyes open, staring at the couch.

He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, but it is long enough that Tom is already asleep by the time Harry’s mind finally quiets.

The other boy’s breathing is comfortable. It reminds him that someone is here, he’s not alone in the darkness by himself, someone is here, someone is here—

And that someone is Tom.

Harry closes his eyes and, before he knows it, falls asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <33 leave a kudos or comment if you feel like it.


	6. made for each other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And in the hush of the night, like this, together in the dark, he feels more seen and more hidden than he ever has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Here's chapter six, hope you enjoy it! :)
> 
> (There isn't _much_ of Tom and Harry, but the teensy bit we do get o them, is super cute!)

_Harry wakes up. He’s staring at the ceiling, or at least he thinks he is. It’s strange, though. The ceiling’s black, pitch black, the kind of darkness where you can’t see anything else. He’d painted it white a few days ago he could’ve sworn._

_There's a loud series of knocks on what he believes to be the door, but isn’t quite sure. He stays silent, breathing slowly, when the knocks sound again, even sharper this time._

_He jumps up, a bit scared now, and bangs his head on the stairs. But… That’s strange too. There are no stairs in his house, he knows that, but then… What did he just bang his head on?_

_Harry glances up and falls back in fright._

_Darkness is surrounding him and it’s horrible, horrifying. He lurches in the direction of the knocks and he slams against the door. It doesn’t open and then the black is crawling towards him, like spiders, and he can almost feel it reaching towards his skin and he slams his body against his small cupboard door once more, because that is where he is._

_Harry is in his cupboard under the stairs, and when the door swings open, he realizes he has something other than the pitch black emptiness to fear._

_The room is silent. Harry’s desperation had shoved the door into the wall, and the loud bang it had caused was fading. Light floods over Harry and his small little room, and he sighs in relief, but it doesn’t last long, Aunt Petunia grabs him and yanks him out of his cupboard and off the floor._

_Her shrill voice is too loud and when Harry tries to listen to what she’s saying so he can appease her, he finds that he can’t. That everything she is shouting at him is distorted, sounding like she was under water, perhaps being warped through some sort of device or in and out of a crackling old radio. One with a twisted antennae._

_Harry stumbles after her, confused and when he looks down he is so, so tiny. He is just as small as he was so many years ago, and he is swimming in Dudley’s old hand-me-downs. He looks back at Aunt Petunia, just as she throws him forward._

_The pain he expects doesn’t come, he shuts his eyes too hard and curls into himself but he doesn’t hit the floor or a wall or anything. Instead, her wordless scolding is swallowed up and when he opens his eyes he sees that little him is standing on a playground. One he has seen many times before, most recently when he was fifteen._

_He came here almost every day except now it’s little him, and his feet ache like he’s been walking, even though he seems to have just appeared here. The world morphs around him except he still feels a throbbing in his feet and the harsh glare of the sun, and he feels sweaty, despite having not exercised. He gulps fresh air, feeling dizzy, and like his heart was seconds away from beating right out of his chest. He wipes shaking, child-sized hands on practically adult sized shorts, before he hears noise._

_His eyebrows furrow before he sees Dudley and his gang, his pulse skyrockets again and oh god, he’s pint sized, they’ll crush him! Because they are all their fifteen year old selves, and Harry is suddenly so scared._

_When Dudley and his cronies reach him, they don’t act like it is strange to see such a young Harry here instead of the teen one, they simply act normal. Until Dudley’s eyes widen and Dudley looks_ petrified, _inexplicably, for no reason and Harry’s heart stops._

_When Harry turns around, he sees nothing behind him._

_He turns back to face Dudley and no one is there._

_However, he quickly realizes there is darkness. An ink spill of terrors that is slithering on the ground towards him, there is no reflection in it. Nothing. And light is fading rapidly and he remembers this, he remembers being approached by Dudley and his bullies on this playground and night falling fast, but never like this._

_The darkness isn’t just there, it is swallowing everything else. The light is being sucked into that horrible emptiness, and that is why there is no more sun and why shadows are being cast._

_Wind is picking up, and he is_ frozen, _he is frozen, he is stuck, the darkness will swallow him just like it did to everything else--_

_He’s running. He’s turned around and he’s bolting. The air around him is practically a storm, whipping his hair into his face and whistling past his ears. He spots shadows running with him. He thinks they whisper things, except their words are just as distorted and twisted as Petunia’s, he has no idea what they’re saying._

_The pitch black tar is in front of him now. Harry skids to a dead stop, heart caught in his mouth as he wobbles on his toes._

_He doesn’t fall._

_The relief that thunders through him is enough to crush him._

_He stares at the black, the abyss in front of him as it rises. The sky isn’t grey anymore, it is nearly as dark as his fears in front of him and that scares him more than anything._

_The shadows are louder, the wind is faster, except there are no trees, there are no leaves rustling, there aren't any lamp posts or street lights._

_There is just the contorted voices of the shadows, as loud as the wind, screaming and whispering, and he can see them shift in the air around him, float and fly in front of his eyes, except they are nearly as dark as the charcoal colored oil in front of him._

_It’s so_ dark _._

_Harry takes a step back, and feels a slimy substance leak onto his ankle._

_He stops thinking and when he turns his head over his shoulder, his foot is sinking into the void. It will swallow him whole. The wind is hurting him, lashing at him so sharply, and the shadows are_ screaming _now, and Harry shoves himself forward, trying to free his foot, but he simply trips and falls forward, into the chemistry classroom._

_Because that is where he is now. Snape is yelling at him with his greasy, dark hair, (not nearly as dark as his cupboard) and his voice is unintelligible as well._

_He stares down at his desk, feeling faint. He is itching with the urge to scream and yet he can barely breath. It’s then he notices the words on his desk, they are scratched into the shiny wood._

_The words are in sloppy handwriting, it is his. And it tells him that he is alone, and that is the only sentence. When Harry leans down to peer at the words, there is darkness seeping from them. Leaking, like ink. He jerks backwards, falling out of his chair, but he never hits the ground. Instead Snape’s voice disappears, and he opens his eyes staring at a tiny lightbulb._

_He is back under the stairs, his tiny, swinging lightbulb, so very dusty and flickering, is on. And he relishes it._

_Harry wakes up, and he’s still in his cupboard under the stairs._

_(He wonders if he will wake up soon back in his apartment, it doesn’t matter if his light is on, he’d like to leave now and he can barely remember what life was like before his darkness and his smudged lightbulb. He’d like to remember now; please,_ please _—)_

* * *

Tom has always been a light sleeper, since he was a child and he’d been woken up one too many times by the orphanage Matron, her shrieking voice _—_ like a siren with a ruined throat, Tom had thought _—_ yelling at him to _GET UP RIGHT NOW, OR ELSE!_

It’s a habit that had kept with him all through his years, a habit that had served him well too many times to count. So Tom wakes up to a small, sniffling sound, and it sounds like someone is crying but that can’t be true, there’s no one near him except Harry, and Harry _—_ Harry doesn’t cry. Tom _knows_ that, it’s a fact of life.

 _Harry doesn’t cry_ , Tom thinks. _So what is he doing now?_

Because the noises Harry is making _—_ the sniffles and whimpers and whines _—_ those sound like crying. But Harry never cries.

(Tom knows he is clinging to this fact too hard, but it is one of the things he _knows_ , one of those things he depends on. It makes and breaks his world, and if _Harry_ can cry, then he cannot fool himself anymore.) 

(He cannot _lie_ to himself anymore.) 

Tom shoves his blanket off of him, sitting up dazedly, wiping sleep from his eyes. When his sight adjusts to the darkness, he spots Harry’s sleeping form across from him. Except Harry is not still. Harry is thrashing back and forth, whimpers escaping his mouth.

Suddenly Harry gasps a breath in and stops moving, just his head twisting and turning harshly. 

Tom watches as a strangled sort of yell, too quiet for a shout, is let out, and then Harry is getting tangled in his blanket once more. Tom is moving before he thinks about it, it’s not even a conscious decision, he’s already slid roughly over to Harry.

His hand hovers above Harry’s messy hair and he almost touches it; he can almost feel Harry’s locks, soft beneath his hand, before he catches himself. He’s not—he _can’t—_ touch Harry like that. Not anymore. 

So, instead, Tom whispers, “Harry."

No response, except maybe a whine, a whimper that _does not_ suit Harry at all, a sound that shouldn’t even exist in the same _universe_ as Harry _—_

Tom crushes the thought with the cold, ruthless efficiency he’s used so many times before, and moves closer until he can feel the heat radiating from Harry’s warm body, until he can see every single scar, every single thing that makes Harry, _Harry_. 

“... _Harry_ ,” he says, louder this time, and it feels too loud, but _everything_ feels too loud, in this quiet stillness of the night. Harry’s sniffles are too loud. “Are you okay...?”

Still, there is no response, not that Tom had expected there to be one. He’d played with the thought that maybe Harry was just pretending to be asleep, but he knows Harry would not do that. Would not be so _cruel_. 

(Because if something is cruel, _this_ is. Watching Harry hurt, knowing he could comfort him. Knowing Tom could _touch_ him, but he can’t, he won’t. He will not betray Harry’s trust again.) 

(Even if every whimper from Harry, every sliver of skin exposed, every widening of Harry’s emerald eyes—not that he can see them right now—makes him _want_ , more than anything.) 

Tom scoots closer to Harry and before he knows it—

He is mapping a constellation of every freckle, every mark on his face, and he is close, so close he thinks he can see the molecules, the atoms that make up Harry. 

Every quirk, every emotion, every scar, every _imperfection—_

Tom wants to know _all_ of them. 

And isn’t that such a frightening thought?

And despite the fact that Harry is probably having a nightmare right now, despite the fact that Tom moved over here to _do_ something, and despite the fact that he should be waking Harry up right now… He doesn’t.

Tom stares at Harry’s face, and he does not know how long he has been doing it for. He thinks he could stay there forever, like this, and he wouldn’t mind. He thinks that if he could freeze time, he would, and then he would stay forever in this night, in this perfect half-moment. 

Harry lets out another small whimper, and Tom is dragged back down into reality. Back down into Harry’s screwed up face. 

“Shush,” he whispers, and he will deny it to the end of his life; Tom does _not_ feel a pang of worry at Harry’s pale face, he does _not._

Tom forgets all his protests from earlier, all his rationalized _facts_ and reasoning and _logic_ ; in the end he cannot resist Harry any more than he can burn a valuable book. Tom lets his hand drop gently on Harry’s face, soaking up the warmth there like a satisfied cat. 

Harry makes a curious noise mid-whimper. Half-way through the low, hurt sound, his voice lilts and he turns his head into Tom’s palm.

Harry curls into Tom’s hand, so that now, he can’t remove his hand, even if he wants to. Not that he wants to, in fact every part of his body seems to protest just the thought, but that isn’t the point right now. 

The point is that: Harry’s breathing seems to slow down, when Tom’s near.

So Tom pauses, and for a heartbeat, two, he makes the best stupidest decision he has in his life, and he lies in the tiny bit of space Harry has made against the sofa, and he settles his arm over Harry, as if he is safeguarding him. As if he can safe-guard Harry from the world.

(But he _wants_ to. And isn’t that enough, that he wants to?) 

It feels as though he has crossed a line. 

_But lines are made to be crossed_ , he thinks, and closes his eyes. He will wait there until Harry has stopped twitching uneasily, and is resting silently again. And he could tell himself it is because Harry is disturbing his sleep, he could say it was annoying. He could.

But oddly, he doesn’t. Tonight he has indulged himself and his actions, as well as his thoughts more than he has since their falling out. Why stop that with a lie? Why, in the dead of night, when all is quiet other than each other’s breathing and Harry’s occasional noises. Why now, would he try to cram it into a door with more than four locks?

In the hush of the night, like this, together in the dark, he feels more seen and more hidden than he ever has.

So though he honestly means to go back to his own side of the sofa before the morning comes, he stays. Harry is so warm, and soft, and Tom wants this, at least, if he can’t have anything else...

Tom falls asleep in record time, the warm weight of the other boy gentle against his own skin. Harry’s breath evens out, and Tom’s eyes drift shut.

He doesn’t think about morning or consequences, he doesn’t think about anything. Anything other than how good Harry’s hair feels; the sea-salt smell that he knows is Harry's shampoo filling his nose, the soft sounds of Harry breathing. How _perfect_ he feels in place next to Tom. Like he’d always meant to be there; like Tom’s place is Harry, and Harry’s is Tom. 

And then he’s asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So, that's what I meant by not getting too much of Tom and Harry, but at we did get some insight into Tom's thoughts! And if you think about it, the next chapter has to start with Tom and Harry waking up together cuddling so...silver lining! Anyway, thank you for reading! If you liked it, feel free to leave a comment or a kudos! <3


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